


Five seconds in time

by Little_Lost_Penny



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Ending Fix, Fix-It, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-06 00:29:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18839923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Little_Lost_Penny/pseuds/Little_Lost_Penny
Summary: How is it that their time together is always ending before it can properly begin?





	Five seconds in time

_I have crossed oceans of time to find you. _  
**Dracula**__

 

 

 ** ******It’s that last hug what does it. That last look, that last smile.

Bucky never had the time before to imagine a world without Steve in it, but now, during these five seconds that hang over him like five lifetimes, it hits him: he’s not ready to live in that kind of world. It’s just five seconds, but somehow he knows –he knows that Steve is not coming back, that that was the last hug, and that fight was their last fight; this timeline was their last timeline.

If Steve stays in the past, then this will not be his future. Which means... that their time together is over – _again _.__

__How is it that their time together is always ending before it can properly begin?_ _

Then the platform lights up and there he is. He looks at Bucky the same way Bucky thinks he must be looking at him: as if they thought they would never see each other again.

Maybe this is not the end of their time, after all.

 

*****

 

They’re sitting side by side on a bench overlooking the lake. The sun has gone down and the water is calm and dark.

“It was my plan.” Steve admits, shrugging “I was going to return all the stones, and then go find her and give her that dance I promised, and then stay.” Bucky supresses the urge to stand up and leave.

“What changed?”

“Nothing, that’s the thing, I went there because I wanted a second chance with the woman I loved and I found myself in a different time, doing exactly the same thing I’ve been doing my whole life.”

“Which is?”

“Looking for you.”

It’s a simple truth; clear and direct. The air around them crackles. Their breathings drown all the noises. The world changes in a way that’s only ever happened deep in a corner of their minds before. Sitting there on that bench, not daring to look at each other, they both see it clear as day for the first time.

“I was there thinking of what I’d say when I saw her, how I would explain, but the scenery was so familiar that I found myself searching for you.” His gaze softens, still staring at the lake, as if lost in another time “Then I realized that you were not there, and the need to go find you was almost unbearable, but I knew I couldn’t do it, not there at that time, and then…then I imagined living in a world without you in it, and I almost lost it." He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and rubs his face with one hand. “Then I remembered that that was not my world, my world was in another time, and you were there waiting for me.” He turns to Bucky then, with eyes full of hope and longing and fear “Were you? Waiting for me?”

Bucky takes a deep breath, drops his gaze to his lap, closes his eyes. Tries to find the right way to put into words what he has known for as long as he can remember. All he though he'd lost, all he though he'd found, then lost again, and then…

“You’re an asshole.” He says finally “I’ve been tortured and brainwashed and hunted and frozen and still…still deep down I _knew_ I would be with you in the end, and you…" He laughs, a humourless, self-deprecating laugh that is so utterly Bucky’s ”…you had to go back in fucking time to look for a chick you loved 70 years ago to realize you felt the same about me?”

Steve smiles slightly, a sheepish grin that does nothing to mask the guilt behind it.

“I’ve always been slower than you.”

Bucky wants to punch him.

“That was pretty _fucking_ slow, Rogers.”

Silence falls over them then like a soft, welcoming snowfall. It’s a new world and neither of them knows how it works yet. Will it disappear if they move?

“I’m going to bed.” Bucky says suddenly, standing up “It’s been a long day and I can’t deal with this right now.”

Steve’s hand shoots up as if to grab him, but stops mid-air when the other man turns to look at him.

“Tomorrow.” He says “Can we talk about it tomorrow?” _Will you be here tomorrow?_ He doesn’t say. _Do we have tomorrow?_

Time has always had a cruel way of playing with them.

Steve breathes in, out. Looks at his outstretched hand, and thinks about what tomorrow means. He owes it to Tony and Natasha, he owes them tomorrow. He owes himself to stop looking back and start looking forward for once. He can almost hear them muttering, _**finally**. _

“Tomorrow.” He whispers, as he drops his hand “Tomorrow.”

Bucky nods and turns to leave.

“I would have gone looking for you.” He says suddenly, his back to Steve “If you had stayed, I would have gone looking for you.”

Steve smiles and it’s as if his lungs are savouring the air for the first time in forever.

“That’s what we always do, after all.”

**Author's Note:**

> They really deserved a better ending that the one they got.


End file.
